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Safety First

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Several years ago this blog started a campaign to improve road safety in the Road View/Mullins Bay area, and 2016 saw the start of the fulfillment of that vision in the covering of a portion of the storm drain/gutter between the Rubis Service Station and the location of the former Kings Beach Hotel, creating the much needed sidewalk pictured above. At the beginning of the New Year 2017 we take the opportunity to look back and say thanks to all those who were instrumental in bringing about this critical piece of community infrastructure.

We thank our Parliamentary Representative, the Hon. Edmund Hinkson, who used his good offices to interface with Government on our behalf to see the realization of this community amenity. We thank Maria Bradshaw and The Nation newspaper for visiting the area and highlighting our plight over the years. We thank all those who signed our petition or in any other way supported our efforts in making this a matter of urgent public concern. Finally, we thank the MTW workers who actually provided the manpower in creating this outcome.

Unfortunately, however, even after nearly an entire year of construction the project is still not completed, and the most critical stretch between the service station and the Bombas and Cheers restaurants/bars around a crucial bend in the road remains uncovered. This bend saw an accident where an area octogenarian was knocked down by a truck and was hospitalized. Fortunately, she survived and nearly seven (7) years later is still walking along this dangerous piece of roadway. So, even though we say thanks, we continue to advocate on behalf of our residents and visitors, and hope that long before 2017 comes to and end we can all celebrate this improvement in road safety in Road View/Mullins.

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Wednesday, December 03, 2014

For the last several years this blog has been campaigning for road safety in the Road View, Mullins and Gibbes area. So it is with a sense of gratitude and satisfaction we report that yesterday history was made in Road View with the setting up of a Pedestrian Crossing in Upper Road View between the northbound and southbound Road View Centre bus stops. If nothing else, this measure should help to slow down traffic in an area notorious for motorists speeding up and overtaking.

We don't know if our campaign had anything to do with bringing about this outcome, but we would like to thank the fifty-odd people who signed our petition, the current and immediate past St. James North Parliamentary Representative who both wrote letters on our behalf, and the relevant government ministries which are responsible for this development. There is still a lot more to be done to improve road safety for pedestrians and motorists in the area, but this is a good start and we salute it.

Am I the only one left in Road View/Mullins, who finds resonance in these opening lyrics from Sweedish House Mafia's hit song "Don't You Worry Child" as I try to walk the beach in the Mullins Bay area? See, I was practically born on this beach, just over the road in Bayfield on the site where the telephone exchange is located. I remember a time when there were no seawalls, no rock revetments, and no groynes breaking up a wide sandy beach that stretched from Margarets (Greensleves) in the south to Speightstown. And, although I am fully aware of the accelerated beach erosion in the area in recent years, it's still always a shock when I try to walk the beach and find that I can no longer do it.

Such was the case yesterday as I tried to go around the bend between Mullins and Gibbes beaches. The massive seawall that was built to keep out the sea and people behind the beachfront villa - Four Winds - is being repaired, and so, the path along the top of it which allowed safe passage from the crashing waves below is blocked. I had to turn around and go back. I was literally trapped on Mullins Beach.

Does anyone still remember that there was a wide sandy beach behind behind Four Winds and neighbouring High Trees (formerly Higwood)? Four Winds is a special case as it was listed for sale earlier this year for more than US$50M - a record-breaking asking price for a property on the island, if not the rest of the Caribbean. I don't know if it has been sold, but there is currently a lot of building and rebuilding ongoing on the property, including on the seawall, which despite its depth into the beach, the sea had undermined.

So, they have built a sandbag cofferdam and are trying to shore up the seawall behind it with yet more concrete and steel. We continue to get away with a lot of evil in the name of Climate Change. When are we going to learn that beach-hardening does not work? It destroys surrounding beaches, upsets the ecosystem, and kills tourism.

Talking about the ecology for a moment, also on an area beach yesterday a rare turtle nesting in broad daylight occasioned my having to call the local sea turtle conservation to rescue the eggs from the precarious position of the nest on the narrow beach where nests are routinely washed out every nesting season.

What is needed in Mullins Bay is a comprehensive solution for the area involving the removal of all or some of the haphazard, patchwork of seawalls, rock revetments and groynes, etc., and a program of beach nourishment (re-sanding). Clearly, we cannot go on with the one man builds a groyne - forcing his neighbour to build a seawall - forcing the sand offshore cycle. But I am not a worrying child. "See heaven's got a plan for [me]."

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Police have confirmed that 18 people, including the driver, have been injured in the minibus accident which occurred in Gibbs, St Peter just after 4 pm today.

Police PRO Inspector David Welch said the minibus overturned on to its right side when Wendell Piyotte lost control of the vehicle.

Among the 18 people injured, five of them are in serious condition, including Piyotte, a resident of Upper Mount Standfast, St James.

Inspector Welch said seven people had to be taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital by ambulance.

The accident triggered a mass casualty response which included police, six doctors from the QEH, and personnel from the ambulance service, the Barbados Fire Service, the Barbados Defence Force, the Roving Response Team and the Disaster Emergency Management."

People who say 'I told you so' are never very popular, butthrough this blog, a petition, newspaper articles, and letters sent on our behalf by the current and former parliamentary representative for the constituency of St. James North, the Government of Barbados has been warned about the dangerous driving and hazardous road conditions in the Road View-Mullins-Gibbes area. To our knowledge nothing has been done to date, except the demarcation of a center line of the roadway. The question remains: How many more innocent lives Government is prepared to see sacrificed and/or maimed before it acts on the behalf of its citizens and visitors to the island? This blog will continue to keep watch and count.

To the reader: If you ever use the roadway on foot or in a vehicle in the Gibbes, Mullins or Road View area, or if you care about road safety in Barbados, please sign the petition. Again, the life you save could be your own. ...